Old land, New arrivals
by Rising Bashir
Summary: Four years after the Human/Pandoran war, the presence of man has all but dissapeared from the land. But the memory remains strong, and has brought greater unity to the People. But new arrivals have come from the stars.
1. New arrivals

**Alright, this is my first published story. As it goes, humans are gone from Pandora and are presumably extinct. The Planet is healing nicely but the experience has affected the people. Peace reigns again and the Na'vi can live their lives as before. Of course until a new race of aliens descend from the stars that is. -**_Avatar is the property of J.C and his people; everything else is of my own design and ownership._

Bathed in reflected light from the great gas giant Polyphemus, Pandora's nighttime hemisphere was glowing with bioluminescent life and from high orbit, the moon's surface was a bas-relief against the blackness of space.

And from that dark void glided a great ship, of a like never seen by the moon or its inhabitants. The long craft was dark, bar the quartet of engine mounts, which pulsed brightly and trailed streaks of slowly dissipating plasma. Hovering in orbit over the moon, the ship seemed to quietly regard the beauty of the world below. But at that moment, Pandora rotated the final amount to transition into daytime, the light from the three suns rapidly bringing dawn and continuing into full morning. Lights snapped on along the hull of the visitor ship and from the bottom of the craft armor plating shifted, leaving a gap on the ship's belly; from the gap there was a flash like lightning and gases billowed as a tiny ellipse shaped object blasted from the gap and fell towards the moon, increasing speed as it was pulled in by gravity. As its payload entered the atmosphere and vanished from sight, the ship seemed to hesitate, waiting.

Far below, on the surface the transition from awake to asleep and vice versa was taking place. Nocturnal predators retired to their nests and burrows and all across the daytime hemisphere, the daylight side of Pandora began its daily rhythm. In a secluded part of a continent-wide jungle, a Viperwolf was settled in a bush napping; a moment later the ground four meters away exploded as a meter wide object slammed into the ground, spraying dirt and small stones in every direction. Birds fled to the air and woken from its sleep, the Viperwolf gave a frightened yelp and ran into the safety of the deep jungle. At the bottom of the eight meter impact crater sat nestled in a bed of smoldering ashes and blackened glass, a four foot long oval shaped object. It was bloody red and metallic, with gray streaks of ceramic like substance running across it in odd symmetrical patterns. The object glowed with incredible heat from its descent, and as it cooled, it split along its lateral equator, exposing a mass of maroon flesh. Slowly and tentatively a cone shaped fleshy head extended itself from the shell, a triple set of marble like eyes studying its surroundings, stubby snout taking in the jungle air, and a pair of long tentacles, broad and flat at the ends and tipped with a fan of writhing flexible spines, uncurled from the body and waved in the alien air, testing it. With a bizarre warbling sound, the hatchling alien creature shoved its oar like tentacles into the rich soil and began to burrow beneath the surface.

Then far above the Moon, as silently as it had come, the ship turned tail and headed back into the darkness. Its pilots not taking a second glance back. For the time being, their purpose here was finished.


	2. Unpleasant Discovery

In stark contrast to the quiet calm and peacefulness of Pandoran high-orbit was the bedlam of confusion and panic that filled the high tech interior of the Hell's Gate Fortress command center.

"I don't CARE how statistically improbable you think it is Max, get Jake up here, and do it now!" Shouted Norm Spellman at the shorter human from across the room; Max Patel opened his mouth to protest. "You're being paranoid, there's no-"But as the Avatar stood out of his chair angrily Max gulped and ran out the airlock to Jake's quarters in the refitted barracks.

As the airlock sealed shut, Norm dropped heavily back into the reinforced human chair, his eyes glued frantically to the array of computer screens and holographic displays that relayed data from Hells Gate's banks of sensors and the field of satellites in orbit around Pandora. Sweat beaded on his face, chest, and arms, soaking his shirt, and his Bio-lights pulsed erratically, clear signs of stress. Alarms buzzed and beeped their redundant alerts, and to his sensitive hearing the sound was monstrous, which added a layer of annoyance to his stressful fear.

It had been a couple of years now, since the days when the wounded body of his Avatar had been salvaged from a battlefield and mended and when he surrendered his human flesh and blood and had his consciousness transferred to the Avatar and become one of the People. Now his body was of Na'vi shape, a body that he had nearly lost fighting to dispel an enemy that stood to destroy all around them. An enemy that might have finally returned, and could now stand on their very doorsteps.

There was a _snap-hiss _of air and the entryway opened. From it strode Jake Sully, the uniter of clans, the sixth Toruk Macto. With Jake came Max Patel and six other exo-pack wearing humans, former Avatar drivers, who had opted to keep their human bodies and not undergo the transformation into permanent Avatars. Jake grinned in his keen, confident manner.

"Hey Norm, what's going on? Max is bugging out, and from what he says so are you." When he noticed Norm's disheveled appearance and flickering bio-lights his grin faltered. "Norm?" The last traces of Jake's grin, along with his aura of supreme control, vanished as Norm remained silent.

Several moments passed before Norm looked up, his golden eyes baleful. With a last quick look at the holographic monitor, "A starship just appeared above the planet. It's locked into our orbit."

The six former RDA personnel all gasped and Jake felt his heart sink into his gut as the blood drained from his face."What, W-when? How can-it can't be!" The great warrior and chief was panicking, and for the first time in nearly five years, Toruk Macto was afraid. His head raced with his heart, and his breathing was shallow. _After all these years, they're back. _He and the rest of his people had always believed, at the back of every being's mind, that the Sky people would return, return to avenge the defeat they suffered; to return and finish what they had started. But as a year became two, and two became three, and finally four, that dreadful expectation soon faded to just another of the many worries of Pandoran life. But now, the sum of many fears had finally returned.

"How long?" he managed to croak through a tightened throat.

"It first appeared twenty-minutes before you came up here." Norm replied. "Its approach is what set off all of the alarms and sensors. It's massive, bigger than anything RDA or _anyone _should be capable of building. And its energy readings are off the charts. But the strangest part is that it hasn't moved since it got here, its just sat there in orbit sending out signals. I've tried analyzing them but-"

"Wait, what do you mean its sending signals?" Jake interrupted. "Well I suppose that calling them waves moving at an extremely high power and frequency is more accurate of a term, but yeah, its been sending bursts of wavelengths at the planet in a bizarre pattern: it sends a burst, then waits several minutes and then does it again. At a glance it almost looks like its scanning the planet."

Jake knotted his eyebrows and his frown deepened. "Maybe RDA is checking to see if we're all still gathered together down here and ready to kick their asses?" He laughed a bit, a small vestige of his cocky old self coming out momentarily.

Norm shook his head. "That's what I though at first too. But then I ran the signal through analysis." He gestured to the banks of computer software. "But according to my observations, the area that the signals are directed at is a small area of the eastern part of this continent. I checked RDA's records and files. There's nothing in that area; No Population centers, no Unobtainium deposits, not even a weapons cache. There are only a few small villages, nothing worth attacking."

Jake took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down, _come on, Jake. Don't let your mind get away from you…Gah! What would Neytiri do in this situation?_ The memories of learning with Neytiri, of her no-nonsense attitude and logical, near unfazeable demeanor calmed him greatly and he scolded himself for loosing control. _Skxaugn, _he thought of his mate's nickname for him. _Oh Neytiri, what a judge of character you are._

Now, with his panic gone, a determination filled him. He wheeled around and pointed at one of the humans standing beside him. "You!" the man shrank back at the ferocity in Jake's voice. "Run to the communications room, contact the Omaticaya and tell Neytiri of all that has transpired! Run, GO! She must be warned, whatever RDA sends at us, we WILL be ready!" The man didn't need to even think twice, he opened the airlock and dashed down the hallways as fast as his short, human legs were capable. Jake turned back to Norm, "I'm flying to Hometree." When he got no response, his frown returned. Norm's eyes were glued to the display screen.

"It's…Gone." He said, looking up at Jake, who looked at Norm incredulously. "What do you mean, Gone?" Norm gave an exasperated sigh, "I mean it LEFT. It just turned around and flew back into space. I have the satellites scanning at their maximum range and theres nothing, not a trace except for the energy burst it made as it left. Maybe it was lost, or somebody who decided not to press their luck in a round two. I don't know anything except that it isn't in Alpha Centauri anymore." Jake thought about it, and it did seem reasonable. Maybe it was a ship that had been inbound and just got the news that nobody's still here and left. Still some things still bothered him. _Not even Earth's fastest ISV could just pop out of a star system that quickly. _He looked at the tired, disheveled, and rather odiferous Norm.

"Hey bro, whatever just happened I think isn't going to be a problem. I'm flying out to Hometree anyway, got to stop Neytiri from getting everybody into battle mode over nothing. Get something to eat, get some sleep, and for god's sake, take a shower man." They both shared a laugh at that, and with the morning's tension broken Norm exhaustedly stood up and went out the airlock, leaving Jake alone in the command center. He walked over to the still active holographic screen.

He bent to look at the display. Norm was right, there was very little of anything in that area. The whole zone was essentially a fifty kilometer wide jungle area, flat and dotted with large clearings, nothing of much value. Then something clicked in his head. Memories of his days of military training passed in his mind; while the area had no material worth, i_t would have made a perfect landing area._

ooo

**So yeah, I know the title sucks and so does the summary. But ok, I know the first chapter was a bit short, but this and the rest should be longer though. If you got comments or concerns about the story, or you got an idea that you think would be cool to put in, just message me or leave a review. The primary storyline is set but im welcoming of details or small elements. **

_**Nothing of avatar is mine, and I make no profit of any kind from this. All other characters and concepts are of my own design and ownership, and I make no profit from those either. Cheers.**_


End file.
